


Ash

by anactoria



Series: Dean/Benny Challenge Ficlets [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Dean Winchester, M/M, Purgatory, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2258097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoria/pseuds/anactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demon!Dean finds Benny in Purgatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ash

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [deanbennychallenges](http://deanbennychallenges.tumblr.com/)' [week of prompts](http://deanbennychallenges.tumblr.com/post/94762320064/this-years-dean-benny-challenge-week-is-from-the) on Tumblr. Prompt #6: Monster.
> 
> Unbetaed.

Benny tastes it in the air. Ash and sulfur, bitter on the back of his tongue. It’s unfamiliar enough, here, that he takes a moment to place it. Demons don’t bother with Purgatory, generally speaking. Between Hell and earth, they have their hands full.

By the time he’s gotten it figured out, it’s gone.

The next time he notices it, it’s accompanied by the snap of undergrowth in the trees, and he falls into a defensive crouch. It vanishes again, quick as it came, and Benny hears nothing more. But he spends the next few days on high alert: he knows when he’s being stalked.

The thing that’s hunting him is good at hiding. It uses the forest. It may not be a native, but it knows the terrain as well as he does. Benny does have one advantage, though. Vampires have sensitive noses, which is mostly a curse, but it means he can distinguish the oily dankness of a Leviathan or the furry canid warmth of a werewolf at a hundred paces. 

Next time the demon shows up, there’s wind stirring in the trees, and he’s ready.

He circles round, manages to approach the thing from behind, thinking to take it by surprise. But when it turns on the spot and looks at him with Dean’s face—well, he freezes like a prey animal, shock taking hold of him; thinks for sure that he’s done for.

Dean’s mouth opens in what might be a sneer or a snarl, or pure shock. 

Then he vanishes, leaving nothing but the smell of burning on the breeze.

\----

Benny sits down, lays his machete on the ground and leans his back up against the trunk of an old tree so vast you could probably hollow it out and live in there. He sits there for hours.

He waits.

Funny, but he doesn’t feel like he’s hunting—or like he’s being hunted, not anymore. It’s more like fishing.

Sure enough, Dean shows up again, eventually. He hangs back, at first, keeping his distance, regarding Benny with a suspicious eye.

“Just so we’re clear,” he says. “It’s me.” He tugs at his shirt, and yeah, that anti-possession symbol is intact. “ _This_ is me.”

Benny looks up at him tiredly. “I know,” he says. He inclines his head. “Come sit with me, brother.”

“Don’t call me that,” Dean snaps, but he comes, and he sits.

\----

“It was so damn _easy_ ,” Dean bursts out, after a long silence. “Not giving a crap. It was—fuck, it was like I’d been drowning my whole life and then I could breathe again, you know?”

Benny doesn’t look at him. Dean doesn’t need his acknowledgement to know that he remembers. 

He feels Dean’s sigh more than he hears it. “But now—I dunno.”

“Couldn’t last?”

Dean looks at him sideways. “It ain’t like I met a girl or anything.” Benny can’t tell whether it’s meant as a protest or a reassurance.

He shrugs. “Ain’t the only way to learn. Sometimes I think if it hadn’t been Andrea, it woulda been somebody else. Or something else. You live long enough, it changes you.”

“I’m a demon.” Dean scowls. “I already got changed. The bad way.”

Benny looks him in the eyes. “And no demon ever changed back? You told me about our angel and his Florence Nightingale, remember?”

Dean snorts, looking like he really doesn’t appreciate the comparison, but he stops arguing and falls silent.

\----

“You said you figured out you didn’t belong up there,” Dean says to him, much later. “That this was home.” He indicates the forest around them with a glance around.

Benny turns to him, a sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I lied,” he says. And then, “Go. Let them fix you up. Live.” He pauses. “Come back for me when you’re human again.” 

The words want to stick in his throat, but he forces them out anyway. It’s one lie they can both afford to indulge for a moment.

Dean doesn’t smile back at him, just nods, then leans in and presses one brief kiss to Benny’s mouth. 

The taste of ash lingers for hours after he’s gone.


End file.
